Philip Seymour Hoffman died today. He was 46.
Details surrounding his death are still developing, but here is what matters: He will be remembered for one of the greatest individual collections of acting work in the last two decades. Hoffman became Truman Capote and won an Oscar for it. He embraced impossible roles, like a priest in Doubt who was simultaneously guilty and innocent in a world that provides no answers for terrible things, like this one. In Almost Famous, he let you know how to live as an honest-to-goodness adult by faking it all.
As Lester Bangs, he extolled this: “My advice to you: I know you think those guys are your friends. You wanna be a true friend to them? Be honest, and unmerciful."
He made a career out of that advice. There is not a dishonest role or dud in his catalogue. Comb through his IMDb. You will not find one.
In interviews, he talked of being an invested and contemplative father. He spoke to Esquire’s Scott Raab about it in 2012:
The thing I realized when I became a father is why parents stay and why they take off. The love you feel and the responsibilities you feel, I can see why some people go. They think, I'm never going to make this. Because it puts all of the heartbreaks you've had in your life in perspective. You're like, Oh, I thought that was a broken heart. That's been my experience. Now I'm sure there are some people whose relationships with kids are different. My kids are just, uh, they're good. They're just good kids, man.
Hoffman played a necessary bridge to reality in The Big Lebowski as Brandt. He maneuvered through an impossible dreamscape in Synecdoche, New York, Roger Ebert’s best film of the last decade. The only thing those two roles had in common is that neither got the critical acclaim they deserved until we saw them for a second or third time.
We now have a chance to do that all again. It's a shame he won't be there to see it.

A terrible loss. I couldn't believe the news. I had to check a few different sources before it started to sink in as truth. RIP.

Sun Feb 02, 2014 10:53 pm

AdamBomb

Joined: 05 Mar 2004
Posts: 3183
Location: Louisiana

This bums me out, hard. There are few actors out there that are "actors' actors" and he was one of the best. I've seen almost every movie he was in and he had the ability to play more complex characters that most people couldn't play convincingly. I feel like even though he won some awards, he never really got his due about how truly great he was. Damn, this sucks.

In the summer of 2007 I was in New York City for some school-related stuff. I was staying at NYU and the dorm was right next to Washington Square. In my free time, I would walk through there, either just for the sake of it or on my way to explore the city. One of the days I was walking to check out a t-shirt place called Andy Cheepee's and there sitting on a bench in Washington Square, casually reading the Times, was Philip Seymour Hoffman. I didn't say anything to him, but I noted how there was a certain quiet intensity to him, apart from his acting. I went about my day, savoring this rare glimpse at an actor not troubled by papparazzi or surrounded by fanfare. Just a guy, reading a paper in a park on a really nice summer day in NYC.

I respected the hell out of his acting chops too. Nobody what the role was, Hoffman seemed to be a cut above everyone else. One particularly memorable role for me was Love Liza, where gave a really powerful performance as a man addicted to huffing gas. If anyone could give that role that really convincing and powerful service it needed, it was Hoffman. This, in my mind, is pure proof that the man could act in any role, any time, and steal every scene.

Fuck heroin can't be said enough. I lost a friend in October to it. PSH was sober for so long and fought the fight, it's terrible when it goes like this so quickly after a relapse.

The laundry list of amazing shit this guy did with his life and talent, without even touching his acting work, is admirable. He really loved theater and young people and did a lot for the arts. He was a hometown hero for us in Rochester. So sad.

Fuck heroin can't be said enough. I lost a friend in October to it. PSH was sober for so long and fought the fight, it's terrible when it goes like this so quickly after a relapse.

I didn't know that was the case, but it would make sense. Several of the friends I've lost due to heroin overdoses happened after they had a good amount of clean time and then relapsed. Usually just by underestimating how far their tolerance had dropped and trying to use an amount similar to what they would have when they were doing it regularly. It's pretty damn scary just how easy it can be to underestimate the dosage, even worse with Fentanyl which has become quite popular in my neck of the woods.

Mon Feb 03, 2014 7:25 pm

CriticalTheory_Breakfast

Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1420
Location: NYC/Rochester

Well, I guess PSH relapsed in 2012 and has been in/out of treatment, after 23 years of sobriety. So who knows if he had been clean in the last year or not. But yeah, my buddy was in rehab when he OD'd. I've heard that happens a lot, for the reasons you mentioned.

Mon Feb 03, 2014 8:59 pm

xGasPricesx

Joined: 23 May 2008
Posts: 1612

CriticalTheory_Breakfast wrote: Well, I guess PSH relapsed in 2012 and has been in/out of treatment, after 23 years of sobriety. So who knows if he had been clean in the last year or not. But yeah, my buddy was in rehab when he OD'd. I've heard that happens a lot, for the reasons you mentioned.

I'm sorry to hear that, I know how much it can suck. Lost my first friend to it when I was 14 and it seems like there has been at least one a year since then (I'm 25 now).

Anyways, back to PSH, still can't believe he is gone. I don't think there's a single movie where his performance didn't stand out, even the really shitty ones he was in like Scent of a Woman. Even just thinking about Big Lebowski, and how small his role was and how much of an impact he made. I mean, there are a lot of memorable performances in that movie, like most Cohen brothers movies, but his was one of my favorites.

The dude was lucky to come around in the time period he did, with the resurgence of indie films in the late 90's/early 00's, but he also had a magnetism to him that is just unparalleled. I guess he was working on a new series for Showtime called "Happyish" as well, they aired some scenes at the recent Television Critic Press Tour and I guess everyone there totally loved it. I hope Showtime will at least show the pilot as a tribute to PSH, but there's no telling right now, especially because there doesn't really seem to be a precedent for it. Just such a fucking shame, seems like we've lost an unusual amount of really great actors just in the past year. Cinema just won't be the same without him, especially Paul Thomas Anderson films.

Wed Feb 05, 2014 1:07 am

xGasPricesx

Joined: 23 May 2008
Posts: 1612

Speaking of shitty movies where PSH was still great, just watch this scene. Along Came Polly is basically a horrendous movie, but PSH is still pretty fucking great in it.

Let it fucking rain.

Wed Feb 05, 2014 1:12 am

Marcus Forealius

Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 555

Funny that Along Came Polly was brought up. I'm fairly certain I hadn't yet heard the term 'sharted' prior to Hoffman dropping it in that movie.

Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:45 am

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